Body fat of professional women's football athletes at the beginning of the season
Abstract
Introduction: In football, body composition influences physical potential and varies during the season according to the period of training. Monitoring is usually done by anthropometry, but there is a lot of discrepancy between the protocols used to assess body fat (BF). Objective: To describe the variation in anthropometric measurements between pre and start of season, and between positions of a professional women's football team and compare the most used protocols for BF estimation in the literature. Materials and Methods: Convenience sample composed of 23 athletes, evaluated at an interval of 2 months. Nine skinfolds were measured, following the standardization of the International Society for the Advancement of Kinanthropometry (ISAK). To calculate BF, eight different protocols were tested. Results: Body mass remained stable between the two assessments. There was a reduction in BF in seven of the eight tested protocols. There was no difference between positions. Among the protocols tested, there was a variation of up to 7% in the BF. Discussion: There was a reduction in BF between pre and beginning of the season, with levels adequate to the recommendations for football players. BF assessed by the sum of skinfolds is in agreement with what is found in the literature. Conclusion: BF variation was identified between the pre-season and the beginning of the season regardless of body mass variation, which remained without significant variation. There were no statistical differences between positions. The fat percentage protocols varied up to 7%, making it necessary to standardize the anthropometric assessment method in women's football.
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